Various hand-held instruments for use by a physician during office examination of a patient have been known in the art for many years. Such hand-held instruments include the otoscope (for examination of the ear and throat) and ophthalmoscope (for examination of the eye).
Also, in the prior art, it has been known to employ miniature or micro video cameras in connection with various surgical procedures which occur in the operating room. One example of such prior art is U.S. Pat. No. 4,963,903 (1990) entitled Camera Positioning System by Richard M. Cane, one of the within co-inventors. Such video cameras are, technically, known as remote head color CCD cameras. Such cameras employ an array of semi-conductive chips using a technology known as charge coupled diode sensors. Such micro-cameras are capable of yielding more than 500 lines of resolution per axis, resulting from the sue of 400,000 or more pixels in the screen. Use of such micro-video cameras and related equipment, such as endocouplers, have been known of some time in connection with certain types of surgery and, particularly, surgery conducted through the use of a small incision in the body wall in a procedure which is know as a videoendoscopy. Such procedures have become increasingly commonplace in connection with procedures upon the gall bladder, appendix, intestine, and reproductive organs where the problem is of an internal nature.
Despite the relatively widespread use of micro-video technology in the operating room, which includes the display of a procedure upon both local and remote monitors, the benefits of this technology have not, heretofore, manifested themselves in the physician's office within the context of otherwise routine examination and diagnosis.
The need for, and benefit of, the expression of this technology into an office examination environment is evident in many area. In the first instance, the patient and doctor might both observe, upon a local monitor, a greatly enlarged subject of the examination. A video record of such examination may be kept, and the patient and doctor, and/or consultants, may be provided with either the video of selected positive print frames of a video tape of the examination.
Enhanced light may be furnished to the site of observation, and extra battery-power or A/C power may be provided to the doctor's hand-held instrument. Also, in a more exotic context, a video link to a satellite or other transmission means may be provided from a video interface of the system such that consultants may be utilized either in real time, or in a batch mode, to provide "second opinions" to the examining physician who may be located in a geographically remote region and/or may possess limited skills in the specialty to which the examination relates.
The instant invention may be thereby understood as an enhancement of the power and utility of conventional hand-held, in-office medical diagnostic instruments in the nature of the otoscope and ophthalmoscope.